Federal judge Manuel Blanco passes away

Blanco, who had presided over La Plata's First Federal Court since 1984 and also acted as a provincial electoral judge, passed away after suffering heart failure during a visit to a clinic in the Buenos Aires capital.

In the past few days the judge had declared himself fit to oversee the investigation into the appropriation of Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo president Estela de Carlotto's grandson, Ignacio Guido Montoya Carlotto, who was taken from mother Laura as a baby by members of the military dictatorship.